Silicon Valley flexes muscle

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, September 29, 1996

1996-09-29 04:00:00 PDT SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA -- Nowhere does the popular metaphor of the presidential campaign - building a bridge to the 21st century - resonate more than in Silicon Valley.

The valley's decision-makers - former San Jose Mayor Tom McEnery describes them as "innovators who color outside the lines" - say they're venturing into the new territory of politics, and liking it.

"We're getting politically involved for the first time in our history - active, and very involved," says Kevin Compton, a partner in the Menlo Park venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who publicly endorsed Republican Bob Dole this past week.

The valley's high-technology whizzes have been known for years as sources of political money. And late in the 1992 campaign, then-Democratic nominee Bill Clinton won the endorsements of a small group of prominent Republican high-tech CEOs.

But the 1996 campaign is marked by the organized, public roles taken by the executives. Almost 400 have endorsed the two major candidates, others have lent their homes for fund-raisers and policy discussions and some are forming a new political action committee.

While the CEOs are jumping into partisan politics, a poll released last week suggests the two major parties haven't found a way to tap into the valley's work force - called

"wired workers" - who have little patience for politics as usual.

That hasn't stopped President Clinton and Dole from making Silicon Valley a popular destination on the campaign trail. The two have made five visit the past four months and Dole's wife, Elizabeth, also has appeared in the area.

Clinton rolled into Sunnyvale two weeks ago for a $500,000 fund-raiser with industry leaders. And GOP vice-presidential nominee Jack Kemp, who just resigned from the board of Redwood Shores-based Oracle, is scheduled to conduct a "town hall" meeting Monday at the Mountain View offices of Netscape.

In the last month, high-tech executives have held dueling news conferences to endorse presidential candidates - often splitting with their own company colleagues publicly to do so.

"The ferment we're seeing (in politics) is quite related to the ferment we're seeing in the world of business. We're in the midst of the most radical revolution of how business gets done . . . since the Industrial Revolution," says Bill Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company magazine.

Agreement on issues

Compton, of Kleiner Perkins, says Republicans and Democrats in the high-tech arena are fierce competitors - but they agree largely on concerns: the economy, jobs, taxes and growth, and securities litigation issues such as Proposition 211 on the Nov. 5 ballot. The battle, he says, is over "who we believe can execute those issues."

Clinton mined the area successfully in 1992, but some observers wondered whether his veto of a bill that would have curtailed securities lawsuits would dampen the area's enthusiasm for him. Industry leaders claimed the bill would have blocked frivolous and costly litigation aimed at high-tech companies.

But Clinton backers said the president's veto, while disappointing, didn't hurt the support he has built during his four years in office. And he recently opposed Prop. 211, which high-tech executives of both parties are fighting strenuously.

"We don't always agree," acknowledges Clinton booster Gloria Rose Ott, chairwoman and CEO of San Jose-based RapidTech. "(My support) has everything to do with a belief in an administration working on your behalf - not just single issues, like taxes or encryption. It's about education, the future, and all the things that make the valley a rich, spontaneous, creative place. It's a real difference in approach."

Her view was echoed by about 75 high-tech executives - many of them Republicans - who endorsed Clinton earlier in the campaign. They argued he spurred a growing California economy, had cut the deficit and was in touch with their industry and the critical challenges of training workers for the future.

Like many Clinton supporters, John Doerr, another partner at Kleiner Perkins, says: "The Dole tax plan has me most worried . . . unspecified, across-the-board cuts are irresponsible. As a business executive, I love a tax cut - but more than anything else, I want government to be responsible and government to be smaller."

Yet this past week Dole won the backing of nearly 200 top executives who argued his proposed tax cuts are among the reasons he would be better for Silicon Valley.

"A cut in capital gains taxes will benefit me, and make me richer. And I'm not embarrassed to say that," Rodgers says. But he adds that his money will be reinvested in Silicon Valley, creating jobs, products, and a stronger local economy.

Fertile ground for money

While the debate continues, both parties have wasted little time downloading big contributions from the valley.

Also in Clinton's camp: NetDay guru and Sun Microsystems' chief science officer John Gage, and company co-founder Bill Joy; and Steve Jobs - the original startup-in-a-garage founder of Apple Computer and now CEO at Pixar.

The "soft money" contributions to political parties - which aren't subject to the individual donor limit of $1,000 for a candidate during the primaries and general election - are harder to track. Adaptec CEO John Adler, who said he had never contributed to political campaigns before, acknowledged this week he's given $100,000 to the Republicans.

Workers not easily swayed

Even while Silicon Valley's leaders are raising their profiles on the election, a survey released this week suggests vast numbers of technology workers - on the front lines of economic and workplace changes affecting the nation - represent a potent political force that neither party has effectively mobilized.

From the CEOs to the engineers and software developers,

"the conventional labels of Democrats and Republicans don't relate much anymore in terms of how they see the world," said Taylor of Fast Company magazine.

The poll showed that the majority lean toward Clinton, although they're libertarian in beliefs. Computer-savvy workers, they are largely angered by politics as usual, according to Morley Winograd and Dudley Buffa of the Lafayette-based Institute for the New California.

Democrats so far have pitched their message to these workers and their bosses with such themes as

"reinventing government" and Clinton's new catch phrase "a bridge to the 21st century." But both parties have a long way to go, say Buffa and Winograd, who wrote

"Taking Power: Politics in the Information Age."

Jasper Rose, national and strategic account sales manager for Fujitsu Corp., says Clinton in word and deed is more in tune with Silicon Valley.

"As a technology worker for years, I feel that we've been waiting for an administration like this. . . . Clinton definitely appeals to those workers, by putting them in touch with their government - they can e-mail the White House and get a response," Rose says.

But Silicon Valley's insiders admit the region has a sometimes contradictory political climate just now being mapped.

Many innovators in Silicon Valley "tend to be very socially liberal. They go to work in Tevas. They're riding their mountain bike. . . . That's not exactly your Bob Dole sound-bite crowd," says James Strohecker, director of interactive communications for Mountain View-based Connect, which develops Internet products and software. Yet, they earn high incomes, are "fiscally conservative . . . (and) they're inebriated by work," he says.

Some of their firms have birthed among the most creative and employee-friendly workplaces in the nation - with innovative day care, programs for working moms, and domestic partnership plans, says Tim Draper, a venture capitalist who endorsed Dole this week.

"This valley has been created by folks who have done things never dreamed possible. To many of them, the issue is freedom: We see the government as trying to tell us what to do with our lives."

But Doerr says that's countered by an abiding concern for the future and the next generation. "The old politics is: I'll start my company in the garage and have these folks (in government) out of my way," he says. "The new politics . . . (is) to work with government in partnership" to aid communities, workers and business.

But the issues of the current election have nothing to do with a "battle of the CEOs" or opposing endorsements, Doerr says. They relate to vision - and that, Silicon Valley has never lacked.

"The more politically active we can get - the more those who are committed to growth, opportunity and legal reform get involved in the process," Doerr says, "the better it is for everyone."

On Saturday, Republican presidential challenger Bob Dole narrowed the gap behind President Clinton to single digits for the first time in the daily CNN / USA Today tracking poll.

Now Playing:

Dole had the support of 39 percent of people, 9 points behind Clinton's 48 percent, CNN said. Texas billionaire Ross Perot was trailing in third place with 6 percent.

The national poll of likely voters was conducted by Gallup and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.&lt;

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